Pauline Hanson burqa stunt: George Brandis pulls off his finest speech by calling out a dangerous fool

ASIO head Duncan Lewis says it until he's blue in the face. His predecessor David Irvine was just as staunch.

Australia's Muslim communities are the best ally our security agencies have in their fight against violent Islamist extremism. Alienating them only severs a vital conduit of intelligence and potentially breeds more angry, isolated people vulnerable to corrupted views.

That is why Attorney-General George Brandis' thundering condemnation of Pauline Hanson's burqa stunt in the Senate on Thursday afternoon was not just a moment of fine moral and political clarity, it was also bloody common sense.

Senator Brandis said Australia's half-million Muslims – the "vast majority of [whom] are good, law-abiding Australians" – are vital to intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

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Attorney-General George Brandis attacks Pauline Hanson for wearing the burqa in the Senate.Credit:Andrew Meares

"And to ridicule that community, to drive it into a corner, to mock its religious garments, is an appalling thing to do and I would ask you to reflect on what you have done."

Senator Brandis was so angry his voice was actually wobbling with emotion.

Rightly so. Senator Brandis, who is a liberal rather than a conservative, has spent the past four years wrestling with how to balance liberty with security.

He knows – based on genuine expert views – more about the risks of terrorism than virtually anyone else in the country, not least Senator Hanson.

One Nation senator Pauline Hanson takes off the burqa. The stunt would likely not have been allowed under old Senate rules.Credit:AAP

And he knows it is absurd to argue we would be safer by banning the burqa on the grounds people would be compelled to show their faces at all times, when weighed against the damage that would be done by infringing the religious rights of a targetted group of Australians.

Yes, Australians. That's what they are and that's what Senator Brandis called them in his short but impassioned speech that earned a standing ovation from Labor and the Greens.

At a time when the President of the United States cannot bring himself to unequivocally condemn neo-Nazis, when the government is on the ropes and when populist right-wing movements are on the march around the world, Senator Brandis did not insert one caveat into his condemnation.

He called it out for what it was: pointless, stupid and even dangerous division at a time when Australia needs anything but.